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Archives for October 2016

Also, Pro-Black is STILL anti-white.

Like just about any other self-loving, socially aware Black person on the planet, I’ve been getting my life from Solange’s epic, Blackity-Black album, A Seat At the Table, since it came out a few weeks ago. It wonderfully outlines so many different parts of a Black experience in ‘Murica. Not to mention, it gave me newfound respect for Master P. However, there was one track that I found to be a bit of a hiccup: “Tina Taught Me (Interlude).”

For the most part, it’s cool. You have Tina outlining how she’s always recognized the greatness, beauty and magic of being Black. It also speaks well of the self-affirming mindset she instilled in her two daughters. However, for me, she goes left with a couple of statements. First: [Read more…]

Ever since the news of the altercation between Azealia Banks and Russell Crowe broke, I made it a point to just sit and wait to hear all sides of the story before commenting…something that many, many others…haven’t quite been doing. Most people have seemingly been jumping to take Russell’s version of events as gospel. And thing is, that’s an extremely easy to do…probably the easiest thing to do. We’re certainly not gonna deny that Azealia Banks has a history of showing her ass and exhibiting trash behavior…she’s easy to dislike and cast aside, as many, many folks have done (which is absolutely fair).

However, Azealia Banks’ history doesn’t mean we can’t look at this situation more critically (and examine the social implications around it). [Read more…]

Can I fast-forward to the point where I’m fully surrounded by people who find my heightened interested in activism and justice to be an asset instead of a hindrance? Does that point even exist?

I’ve touched on this before, but as someone who might jokingly be called “newly woke,” I’m finding myself in a place where I’m owning how much I value social justice and activism in a way that I hadn’t, previously. Truth of the matter is, I’ve felt strongly about social justice and liberation for myself as Black, Queer person, even before I knew what the term “social justice” was. But just after the last year or so, I’m finding myself more fully invested in advocating for justice in more substantial and far-reaching ways.

I didn’t grow up immersed in the intersection of Blackness and Queerness…nor did I grow up in social awareness and activism. They’re all things that I had to go out and find and/or stumble upon on my own. And moving to Chicago played a big factor in that, as did finding my way back to spaces in social media like Twitter. I feel like I’ve grown a great deal in a very short time (I would NOT have been cool with calling myself “Angry” just a year ago…even in jest). It’s given me a much greater sense of clarity in how I view the world, but it’s also come at a price. [Read more…]

WhiteGayze™ continuously prove that being LGBTQ, in and of itself, isn’t some shortcut to social awareness.

If you’ve followed my work for any length of time (particularly, my activity on Twitter), you’ll know my issues with the WhiteGayze™ have been fairly well-documented. But for the benefit of anyone who might be new to Angry Black HoeMo, I’ll give the term WhiteGayze™ a proper definition (subject to change whenever the hell I feel like doing so):

WhiteGayze™ (noun): A catch-all term that is used to highlight people who are white and LGBTQ-identified (most often gay, cisgender men, but not always), who embody and/or exhibit the many, many negative and harmful characteristics that are informed by white supremacy (in many cases, whiteness and maleness), in ways that intersect with the LGBTQ community…and are particularly harmful to LGBTQ People of Color (POC).

This includes, but is not limited to: general discriminatory attitudes towards POC (i.e. “No Blacks, No Asians”), rationalizing—and/or perpetuating—racially-insensitive behavior, appropriating slang, mannerisms and trends created by POC (and not understanding why that’s a problem), speaking for the entire LGBTQ community in ways that erase POC, fetishizing and objectifying POC in ways that give no consideration to this country’s racial history (or even present), earnestly uttering the phrase “Inner Black Woman,” etc. [Read more…]